Apple planning to build 25 million iPhone 5 units this year?

We recently heard that the iPhone 5 was going into production starting August for a September or October release. Now we’re hearing reports that the company is planning on producing 25 million units before the end of this year. The iPhone 5, according to the Wall Street Journal, will be thinner and lighter than the current model.

The WSJ also says that the new Apple smartphone will use Qualcomm baseband chips instead of Infineon, which the current model uses. Of course, we’ve been hearing this rumor for quite some time now. Additionally, the iPhone 5 will sport an 8MP camera, though no word on whether it will have a dual-LED flash unit.

According to the report:

“Apple’s sales estimates of the new iPhone is quite aggressive. It told us to prepare to help the company meet its goal of 25 million units by the end of the year,” said another person at one of Apple’s suppliers. “The initial production volume will be a few million units… we were told to ship the components to assembler Hon Hai in August.”

Hon Hai, based in Taiwan, is the world’s biggest contract manufacturer of electronics by revenue and is the global assembler for Apple products.

However, production might be delayed since the new smartphone is reportedly more difficult to build and produce than previous versions. It makes sense if it’s going to be any thinner or lighter than the already impossibly-thin-and-light iPhone 4.

Expect a steady stream of iPhone 5 rumors, love or hate them, until we hear from Apple this coming fall. There is so much speculation as to when it will launch and what features it will have that it’s becoming difficult to keep track of them all. However, you can see an infographic of the rumors broken down by likelihood here.

[Via: WSJ]